Need a good, but small hardware mixer - recommendations?

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Star Of Stage & Screen

BTW, the project at hand was stacking a handful of SE Boomstar modules using the MIDI overflow to create a massive analog poly. Really excited to see the results! Shouldn't be so different from the concept of a FVS, or the like. I was thinking to add some more tweakable, character-inducing elements to the signal chain pre-box, but I have more than enough I can do ITB, too.

Well then definately go for a mixer from the 70s or 80s that sat in some garage for 20 years.
Get something cheap for the time being but don’t stop shopping for an old low mileage mixer.
I once found an expensive rare hardware synth in a wooden case I thought was a Pool Cue.
Opened it up and it was an EML-101 Analog Synth in Mint condition. I gave the lady 100 bucks because I told her it was worth more than 20 bucks.
I always take my pig nose amp and cables with me when garage shopping.
Most recently I bought 2 x MacIntosh 2500 watt Power Amps with chicken wire and bright orange tubes.
I’m always seeing little mixers and record players.
Gray and Tan were popular colors in the 70s.

I’ve got nothing but Studio Electronics gear. Code 8 OD with all Filter options, 2 x SE-02s and 2 x SE-1Xs with distortion and Envelope mod. They sound like greasy fat bastards when thrown into an old mixer. But I admit I really love the pristine sound of my RCF TT08As. They’re powered 8 inch cabinets that can open doors with SPLs.

Don’t give up looking.

Below is my beloved fat multi oscilator EML.
I’ve been offered thousands for it. No way Jose, it stays where it lays.

my office these days

Depending on the era repairing the power supply for the K250 may be easy, or barely worth the effort. Most power supplies from that era still used thru-hole components or snap-in capacitors, so you should be ok.

If that is not the case, believe it or not there are companies that make replacement power supplies for studio gear. In truth they made the original power supplies, and some are smart enough to still sell them as replacements. I was able to get a replacement power supply for a Proteus 2 for $30. The replacement capacitors would have been less, but the time to replace them would have been more. It was a physical match so I just dropped it in. Lovely!

I don't remember which Yamaha digital mixer poisoned my ears. I think it was their first. I really should have followed up as they improved them, but didn't. Oops!

Sock Muppet

I've had only Yamaha digital mixers for 25 years, gone through about 6 of them I think. There was a huge jump in quallity from the 03D to the 01V. Rough timeline (if I remember) was ProMix01 --> 02R --> 03D --> 01V --> DM2000 --> 02R96 --> 01V96.

Moderator

I've had only Yamaha digital mixers for 25 years, gone through about 6 of them I think. There was a huge jump in quallity from the 03D to the 01V. Rough timeline (if I remember) was ProMix01 --> 02R --> 03D --> 01V --> DM2000 --> 02R96 --> 01V96.

The ProMix01 was a totally amazing mixer that unseated Mackie when it came out - no small task. It had fully recallable automation, moving faders, and built-in effects, and it was cheap.

Mackie had figured out how to bring down the cost of very decent analog mixers about as low as analog could go, and they were kicking serious arse. I toured their factory in Redinville, WA in 1994, and it was impressive - definitely not the typical austere place you expect factories to be. They certainly took it seriously, but it seemed like everyone who worked at that company was having fun (to a point anyway).

As an aside to this aside, they'd just bought a wave-soldering machine that saved them time/money - even though it was broken a third of the time. And I mean that literally - it had a lot of downtime.

Anyway, the ProMix01 didn't sound great, but it was okay. The 03D was much better, and of course the 02R had sold... do hotcakes really sell well? But the Panasonic DA7 blew away the 03D - it sounded way better.